Hallelujah
by lowrider1213
Summary: He knew that the song was over now, so he turned away from the glass, ready to pack up and go home to Virginia. Behind him, their once cocky and confident subject sat dazed and confused, writing out his confession. A collection of unrelated one shots inspired by the song of the same name.
1. The Baffled King

The Baffled King

He watched from behind the two-way glass as his old friend, his mentor, sat in the interrogation room with their suspect. Not for the first time, he was entranced with the way Dave was able to dance with the unsub, pulling him around and around until he forgot that Dave was the enemy, singing to him in a voice so soft and sweet that it was easy to be lulled into the calm he was aiming for.

All these years later, and he still didn't know what Dave's secret was.

He supposed at this point it didn't matter. Besides, he didn't have the patience for it anyway.

Whatever it was, though, it worked remarkably well on almost every subject, and this one was no exception. He focused his attention back on the scene in front of him as the young man bolted up from his chair, practically screaming at the old profiler that he was the master, that Dave didn't know what he was feeling, that nobody could possibly know, and he had seen this play enough times to know how it would end.

Dave leaned forward, head bowed and hands clasped, and spoke so softly to the young man that he had to sit back down to hear him, empathizing and sharing fictitious woes with him until the man felt validated.

It was a minor concession that had to be made to achieve what followed.

Because the young man, now believing the grey-haired profiler to be on his side, proudly told him of how he had taken control over his _underlings,_ torturing them for days before finally killing them – a death they had, in all likelihood, prayed for.

It was a major win for the team, who had been in Minneapolis for weeks with little progress until an anonymous tip had come in yesterday.

And when Dave had exploded from the calm and understanding man who had been before him just moments ago into the enraged and aggressive man that stood before him now, the young man shrunk back into his chair, trembling in fear and with no defenses left.

He knew that the song was over now, so he turned away from the glass, ready to pack up and go home to Virginia.

Behind him, their once cocky and confident subject sat dazed and confused, writing out his confession.


	2. Beauty in the Moonlight

**A/N: This chapter rated M for adult content. **

Beauty in the Moonlight

He had been too close today.

Death had stared him in the eye, he had seen the dilation of its pupils in anticipation, had felt the hot breath of the devil on his cheek as the bullet passed him by, two inches to the right of where his skull had been.

Yesterday, his faith in his own abilities had been unshakeable.

Today he was afraid to sleep.

Which is why he heard the soft creaking of the floorboards out in the living room, where nobody should be at two forty-seven in the morning.

And on any other night, perhaps that would have worried him, but tonight there was a cold spot on the bed next to him where she should've been, and he was not so naïve to think that he was the only one seeing a bullet that didn't miss in his dreams.

As he listened a little closer, he could recognize her ownership of the soft footfalls that he could barely make out as they moved to the staircase. He waited for her to appear in front of him, but her shadow continued past his door. He sighed as he realized her destination, and decided to give her a few moments before he went to collect his wayward princess.

When he could stand it no longer, he eased himself out of bed and padded over to the door. He had almost crossed its threshold when he remembered how she was on nights like this one, and he reached back to snag the corner of the soft blue blanket that was hanging off of the edge of the bed to take with him. When he reached the open window at the end of the hallway, he was infinitely grateful that he had, as the heavy rain of the chilly autumn night had already soaked her.

Crawling carefully out to where she was lying on the roof, he pulled her into his strong embrace, reaching around to wrap both of them in the already waterlogged blanket. She settled against him and he was struck by how beautiful she was in that moment, rain mixing with the tears he could see in her eyes as they fell down her face, the half-light of the moon not hidden by the clouds lending her an ethereal glow. He could feel the steady beat of her heart from where it was pressed against his chest, could feel the soft warmth of her breath as it tickled his neck, pushing back the cold fingers of death that had yet to release him.

He needed more, then, needed her warmth everywhere so that he could be alive again. He tipped his head down to press a needy kiss against her lips, his body shifting of its own accord to hold her more securely against him. One kiss followed another, then another, and another, until he couldn't tell anymore when one kiss ended and another began.

He was pulling her with him, then, back up the roof, through the window, down the hallway to the bedroom he had left what felt like hours before.

Four steps from the doorway was his bed, but those four steps stretched out in front of him like the green mile, and he sunk into the hard wooden chair in the corner instead, pulling her against him to rest in his lap once more.

The neediness in his kisses intensified, matched in fervor with her own, and his hands shook as they reached for the hem of the old t-shirt she wore. She stilled his hands with her own, lifting herself off of his lap and removing the tattered garment herself. He sat statuesque, as though he had been tied to the chair on which he was sitting, unable or unwilling to tear his eyes from her alabaster skin.

She came back to him, then, tossing the black silk of her hair over her shoulder as she seated herself once more on his lap, and this time, it was her hands that shook as she reached for him. As she did for him before, he covered her hands with his own. Bringing them up to his lips, he gently kissed each of her knuckles before moving up to press his lips softly against her own. He pulled his shirt over his head and groaned at the electrifying touch of her skin against his. Moving with more urgency, she tore herself away from him long enough to pull his boxers down his legs, throwing them to the side before pulling her panties down her legs and flinging them in the same general direction. He was hard and ready for her, his velvet encased steel member throbbing in time with the racing of his heart, aching for her.

She moved over him and he held his breath, and when she sunk down onto him she shattered him into a million tiny pieces. He lost all presence with himself, feeling only the fire of her touch, his skin tingling where her fingertips traced. He held onto her for dear life, clutching her to him as though she was a life preserver and he was lost in a stormy, roiling sea. Her fingers traveled to bury themselves in his hair, and he would've sworn under oath that she was tearing whole chunks out.

Later, after the fireworks had come and gone behind his eyes and she was lying boneless against him, he gathered her up and walked those four steps that before had seemed unconquerable to the bed. He laid her gently down and crawled in behind her, pulling her to rest against his chest. A whisper of contentment left her lips, and he pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, only able to whisper back, "I'm sorry, I love you."

"I'm sorry."

Breath.

"I love you."


	3. Cold and Broken

Cold and Broken

He had been here before.

His childhood was spent in pews like these, the worn red cushions on the hard wooden benches promising a level of comfort that would not be found here, the outstretched arms of the statued savior meant to welcome people in, instead reminding him of his father's outstretched arms, ready to strike.

He had never felt at home, here.

And now, as he walked the same walk up to an altar that he remembered from his boyhood, but had never seen, in the church that he had spent hours in, but had never entered, the same feeling of utter loneliness that had washed over him every Sunday as he had set foot in his mother's church crashed into him like the twenty-foot waves that belonged to an angry sea.

He had always been alone, here.

But never quite like this.

Now, as he heard his own footfalls echoing off of the white marble that surrounded him, his body carrying his unwilling mind ever closer to his new reality, one in which she was dead, he might as well have been the only man left alive. He couldn't feel his son's small hand in his own, or the team, his family, at his back, or even the wetness of the tears that no longer belonged to him as they fell down his face.

In that moment, he was a mind without a body.

A husband without a wife.

He had been here before.

* * *

Her name on the black marble seemed to mock him. On the outside, the polished stone fit her perfectly – the dark color and smooth façade a reminder of her class, the simple lettering and gentle curve along the top chosen to reflect her own grace.

But he knew better.

He knew that she was a front of life and light, that she would often choose the bumpier path just for the adventure of it, that for all of her diplomatic training, outside of the field she was the clumsiest of the seven of them – and Reid had set that bar pretty high.

He knew that she would've hated this.

More than anything, he wished that she was here to tell him how awful the service had been, how she had expected better, how he should've known not to let her mother get involved.

But she wasn't.

And her death, more than any other, was killing him. Because he had loved her, like he hadn't loved Haley, fully and truly, without secrets or reservations. And in that moment, that split second when he had been a hair's breadth too late, and the bullet had simultaneously torn her from his grasp and ripped her from his life, he had failed both his one true love and the mother of his child.

Because he knew, without a doubt, that he would never love again.

How could he, when love had brought him here, staring at twin headstones with his twice-motherless eight-year-old waiting for him at home?

No, someone else would have to teach Jack to love.

Her name fell once more from his lips, carried off into the night by a wind that had long since gone unnoticed by him, and he collapsed, cold and broken against the stark reminder of her loss, staying there until the letters had carved themselves into his skin and Rossi had to pry him away, the pure desolation in his dark eyes stealing even the longtime profiler's breath from him.

He had no love left.


	4. Every Breath

Every Breath

She was hiding something from him.

She had that same look about her, and he had that same roiling in his gut.

He'd thought she would've learned how dangerous secrets could be after her Irish past had come back to haunt her.

Apparently not.

And that stung more than he was expecting. He had trusted her with all of his deepest, darkest secrets for months now, had confided in her the most damaged parts of himself and thought that she had done the same.

But every time he spoke with her, he heard her pinch off her words.

Every time he looked at her, he saw a shadow cross her eye.

She might not have learned how dangerous secrets could be, but he had, and he'd be damned if he was going to sit idly by this time.

After all, the stakes were so much higher this time.

So he nodded to himself and, his mind made up to take care of this now before any more damage could be done, stood to call her into his office. Making his way to his door, he frowned at seeing her vacant chair. JJ, who was hurrying passed him, paused for a moment.

"If you're looking for Emily, she's at a doctor's appointment. She should be back soon, though."

"She hasn't mentioned anything to me about a doctor's appointment. Is she alright?"

The fact that he was having to ask another agent, close personal friend to both of them though she may be, about the health status of his girlfriend chafed him a little, but he tried not to let it show on his face.

"Yeah, she said it was just some routine checkup that she'd forgotten about. Again, she should be back soon."

He nodded absently and mumbled a "Thanks, JJ", lost once more in his own head before she had even left his side.

Rather than abate his concern, JJ's words only increased it.

Emily hadn't said anything about a doctor's appointment.

She had just had her physical a month ago, the paperwork was still sitting on his desk somewhere.

They both had dentist appointments next week.

Unease settled deeper within him, spreading until it weighed down his feet and choked his breath. The need to talk to her was mounting, and he wondered if he should just have Garcia track her down so that he could go to her rather than wait for her to come back.

The idea was dismissed before it had even been fully formed, as the object of his musings walked back through the glass double doors towards her desk.

He took a moment to let relief wash over him as he watched her make her way to her chair. Nothing seemed to be outwardly wrong, and he allowed that to sway him from his earlier decision. Shooting her a small smile when she looked up and saw him standing there, he made his way back into his office.

This could wait until they were home.

* * *

It was 6:30 before she came to him.

He had expected her an hour earlier – they'd had a long day of paperwork and she was always keen to leave on days like that.

Her tardiness added itself to his list of worries, but he pushed them aside for just a few moments more.

He flashed her a quick smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes, and hurried back to the file in front of him as much because he actually did need to have it done for the morning as for the distraction it provided.

He hadn't quite figured out what he was going to say, yet.

But as he glanced at her surreptitiously and saw her leaned back on the couch with her eyes closed and the most peaceful look he had seen all week on her face, he paused for a moment.

Perhaps he should reconsider.

Maybe it wasn't any of his business.

He nearly laughed out loud at that.

Putting aside the fact that she was his agent and he needed to be kept appraised of anything that could come back to bite her in the ass in the field and glancing over the consequences that had come about the last time she had kept something from him – from them – he was her lover.

He _loved_ her.

He shook his head. He couldn't worry about that right now. That would have to wait until they were home, and they weren't going to get home until he finished this paperwork.

A few moments later, he slid the completed forms back into their manila folder and placed the whole bunch in his outbox. He gathered his briefcase and slid on his coat before softly making his way over to her. She blinked sleepily up at him and another gentle smile was pulled from his lips. Reaching down, he pulled her to her feet and into his arms, pressed a quick kiss to her forehead and whispered, "Let's go home." She melted into his embrace and they made their way to the parking garage arm in arm.

* * *

The silence was unnerving him a little bit.

He wasn't one to be easily rattled, but the uneasiness that had abated just the slightest bit in the office had come back full force in the quiet of the walk to the car, then the quiet of the drive home, then the quiet in the house.

With Jack at his grandparents' house, the quiet was intensified.

She had disappeared upstairs as soon as she had crossed the threshold, with promises to be back down soon to eat with him.

That was two hours ago.

And though he knew, intellectually, that she was perfectly safe and more than capable of taking care of herself, his worry was mounting.

He climbed the stairs and walked to the room that he had shared with her since she had moved in with him six months earlier and was puzzled when he didn't see her in there. The bathroom door was open and it's light was off as well, signaling that it, too, was empty.

"Emily?"

Relief was short lived when he heard her call back from the extra room that functioned as a hold-all/office space, "Here."

Making his way down the hallway, his frown deepened with the sounds, just now audible to him, of her shuffling around.

Peeking around the doorway, he was momentarily stunned at the state of the room. While it had been messy before, now it looked like Hurricane Jack had torn through it. Absently, he thought that her destruction of the room really should've made more noise.

"What on earth are you doing?"

She spared him a quick look over her shoulder before she went back to pulling items off of the shelves and packing them away into the boxes at her feet.

"Cleaning."

"Why?"

"Well, with our schedules, I thought it was better to get the nursery sorted now before we put it off for too long and then get called away at the last minute and then are stuck with a baby and nowhere to put it. Here, these can go in our closet for now."

She slid a couple of packed boxes to him, but he wasn't listening to her anymore – was instead letting her words wash over him, trying to find another meaning behind them, some way for the world to play another cruel trick on him.

He didn't think he'd get the chance to be a father again.

Nursery.

A baby.

"Are you _pregnant_?"

She bit her lip and nodded at him, and he was sure that the tears he saw swimming in her eyes were mirrored in his own.

A slow smile broke out on his face, one that definitely did reach his eyes, and he gathered her up in his arms, spinning the both of them around until they were so dizzy they couldn't stand, and they collapsed in a heap amongst the boxes littering the floor.

"How long have you known?"

"I've suspected for a while – remember that night in Chicago?"

Oh, he most certainly did. That was one of his finer performances, if he did say so himself. They'd had to work extra hard the next morning to prevent the team from getting any inkling as to what they'd been up to all night. If Morgan had even suspected, they would've never heard the end of it.

"But I only got confirmation this afternoon. I didn't want to say anything until I was sure."

"So that's what you've been hiding these past few weeks. I was starting to get worried."

"Hmph. _Starting_? Honey, you passed worried last Tuesday. I thought you were going to have a stroke and then I'd have to tell you while you were lying in your hospital bed about to undergo surgery like one of those trashy, made-for-TV movies."

He grinned at the visual and pressed another kiss to her dark head, his hand coming to rest protectively over her still-flat stomach where the life they'd created together was.

"You're happy, right?"

He moved over her so that he could look her in the eyes, the expression on his face as intense as when he was questioning convicted serial killers.

"Sweetheart, nothing could make me happier."


	5. Cry at Night

Cry at Night

She threw the door open as though it was a personal affront to her, sending it crashing into the wall so hard the panes of glass in the windows shook, racing out of the precinct so quickly he could practically see flames burning the industrial carpet in her wake. Feeling his temper rise past its already critical level at the thought of having to chase her to continue a conversation that neither of them wanted to have, he took a few sharp breaths and rubbed his aching forehead, willing his pounding headache to go away. He chanced a look through the no longer trembling glass and saw that those officers who had not left the station during the second eruption of Mount Vesuvius were now trying their damndest to appear to be solely focused on their work. Hotch wasn't fooled – there was absolutely no way that the profilers' _disagreement_ had escaped the notice of a station full of cops. The anger that had started to fade came roaring back to him in technicolor, and he followed the path his agent had taken moments before with the same fury coloring his steps.

He flung the exterior door open, immediately searching the parking lot for the current source of his anger. Spotting her dark head leaning against the door of one of the team's standard issue black SUVs, he made quick work of the distance between them, his short, measured steps echoing off of the pavement and warning her of his impending presence. Vaguely, he knew that he should turn around, that the both of them needed time to calm down before this situation became as out of control as the one that had precipitated it. He knew that talking to her right now was doing more harm than good.

'_Which is why you wanted to wait and do this at home.'_ His brain so helpfully supplied.

Being reminded once more of that fact sent his red-hot anger screaming up to apoplectic levels.

Unconsciously, he clenched his fist.

Coming to a stop in front of her, he effectively trapped her between his body and the car door, his fist slamming down on the polished black exterior and causing her to jump before leaning in to her so that the space between their faces was nearly non-existent and growling, "What the fuck do you think you're doing? We weren't done!"

Her eyes narrowed and hardened in response, flashing dangerously at him. The usual chocolatey brown of her irises was replaced with a midnight black that belied none of what she was thinking.

"What the fuck was I thinking? Oh, I don't know, Hotch, I was thinking that, maybe, the Grand Rapids police station wasn't the appropriate place to be having this particular conversation."

Almost in slow motion, he could feel the last strand of his infamous self-control snap. Reflexively, he took a step away from her, his mind subconsciously giving itself the physical space it needed to do what happened next.

He took a deep breath.

He squared his shoulders.

And he laid into her.

As though he was just another of the bystanders that had gathered in the parking lot, he watched himself tear her apart, his words slicing along the fault lines he knew to be there, spilling her soul as easily as a blade would draw blood. For just a second, he could see a flash of pain in her eyes, and it was enough to bring him back to himself, stopping the next words before they had the chance to form on his lips.

He squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his fists at his side and breathing quickly to try to regain some semblance of control. So concentrated was he on trying to reign in his own temper, he didn't see her's flare.

He shouldn't've been surprised, as similar as they were, at the snap of her own self-control. Still, though, some small part of him thought that she would let his words roll off of her, like she usually did on the rare occasions his biting words were directed at her, so her own scathing remarks caught him off guard.

Pretty soon, they were screaming at each other, both of them using their profiling skills to their fullest extent, allowing them to deliver blow after blow, each one coming closer and closer to bringing the other to their knees.

In the background, he recognized JJ's voice speaking lowly into the phone held to her ear, telling Rossi that he and Morgan needed to get back to the station. If possible, the knowledge that the whole team would soon bear witness to his failure to control both the situation and himself kicked his anger up that final notch, enough for him to let loose the vitriol that was begging to leave his lips.

As the first of his words reached her ears, he could see the effect that they were having, knew that he was inflicting what may be irreparable damage not only to their relationship but to her psyche as well, but was unable to stop himself. The ugly words left him and hurtled toward her, leaving her looking as though he had slapped her in the face.

Perhaps it would've been better if he had, rather than throwing words at her that were designed to sting much longer than the strike of a hand.

She gave as well as she got though – she was exceptionally good at her job and it served her well here, too, and soon their screaming had reached new decibels and only Rossi's hand gripping his arm kept him in his place on the pavement. She leapt at him then, Morgan barely catching her in time, pulling her back with an arm around her waist, the momentum she had generated wrenching the both of them around. They were breathing heavily now, the pleas of Rossi and Morgan falling on deaf ears as he stared at her in stony silence and she struggled against the arms holding her.

He could've stepped away, then. Could've given in to the pressure of Rossi's hand as he tried to pull him away from her.

He'd already done enough damage to last a lifetime.

But his mouth hadn't caught up to his brain yet, and so he delivered one final, crushing blow.

One that could only have been delivered by him, because no one else knew her well enough – she hadn't allowed anyone else in far enough.

He regretted it the moment the first syllable crossed the border of his mouth. Watched as the words hit their mark and immediately shut her down, her muscles unable to hold her up, relying instead on her partner to keep her from falling. The grip on his arm increased to the point where he was sure the inscription on Rossi's ring would be visible on his flesh through the fabric of his clothing.

He allowed the older man to push him into the SUV closest to them, the running engine and open doors indicating that it was the one recently vacated by the two men. Shame bubbled up in his chest with the slamming of the door, and he watched surreptitiously through the window as Morgan bundled her into the SUV that had served as the backdrop for their battle of words and wills.

As he ran through in his head the words that he had spoken to her, he felt as though he was going to be sick. He hadn't ever even consciously thought most of the things he had said, no, _screamed_ at her.

And the look on her face.

The more he thought about it, the more it killed him.

He had put that look there.

_Oh God, what has he done._

* * *

Rossi made sure that he went to his hotel room, waiting in the hallway until he heard that telltale click of the deadbolt. Hotch was sure that he was heading back immediately to do damage control at the station, something that he himself should have been doing instead of just standing there in his darkened room.

His last words to her rolled over him again, and suddenly hot tears were falling down his face, leaving tracks like fire on his cheeks. His breath came in gasps and he fell to his knees.

He was so ashamed.

He had just been _so scared_ at the stunt she had pulled today, and then he had been _so angry_ when she had blown it off as though it was nothing.

As though their unsub hadn't had a shotgun to her head with his finger on the trigger.

And he had wanted to make her _see_ that what she had done was reckless, and dangerous, and irresponsible.

But then she had fought with him, and he had known, even as he was in the middle of it, that he should walk away, but she had hurt him.

He had wanted her to hurt, too.

But he had gone too far, had said too much and not enough in the same breath, had known what he was saying and had said it anyway.

_God, he needed to fix this._

* * *

He must've fallen asleep. His neck and back ached from where he was leaning against the bed, and the shadows that he had been able to distinguish as the dresser and a chair were now undecipherable amongst the inky blackness of the rest of the room.

Half of him wanted to turn on the light, at the very least so he didn't accidentally run into something.

The rest of him wanted to hide in the darkness, afraid of what he'd see in the light.

While he was trying to decide, a faint whimper caught his attention. He stilled and strained his ears in an attempt to hear where the sound was coming from, and he reached a new low when he realized that it was coming from _her_ room.

Suddenly, he couldn't stand to be in his room, couldn't stand to be surrounded by the oppressive darkness currently filling the space.

He stood and crossed to the door, not pausing even to grab the key card sitting on the table. He pulled open the door and crossed its threshold into the light of the hallway, squinting as his eyes adjusted before he made his way to where she was.

He held his breath as he knocked, fearing equally that she would and wouldn't open the door.

A second later the door eased open and he had his answer.

It would definitely have been worse if it had stayed closed.

Faint tear tracks were visible on her face, and her puffy, bloodshot eyes left no room to misinterpret what she had been doing in the sanctity of her room. If it was even possible, his heart broke just a little bit more. He breathed out a single word like a broken prayer and shattered both of their worlds, just as he had done earlier that same day.

"Emily."


	6. Blaze of Light

Blaze of Light

She was sitting, dazed and unseeing on the tailgate of one of the ambulances parked haphazardly in the street, the sleepy suburban neighborhood bathed in splashes of blue and red, the silence of the night shattered by the noise of the officers, and Hotch knew that this community would never be the same again.

The horrors hidden away in the house he had just exited had shattered any sense of safety that these people had.

His people, too.

But he couldn't help them right now. No, his people had work to do. The job wasn't done yet. He had needed a moment, though. As many times as he had walked through doors like that one, as many times as he had seen the worst of what humanity could do to itself, he knew that this was a case that would haunt him for a long time.

The sight of those little girls…and what he had done to them…

He thought for a moment he would be sick.

And so he had walked outside, had willed himself to keep it together until he could fall apart within the confines of the four walls of his impersonal hotel room.

And then he had seen her, in the exact same position that she was sitting in now, the empty look on her face scaring him more than any emotion he could have seen there. Every step he took towards her caused worry to settle a little deeper in his gut.

He couldn't remember the last time she had looked like this – perhaps she never had.

That didn't help him right now, though. He didn't know how to make this better.

Didn't know if he could make this better.

He reached her side and sank down on the fender beside her, pressing himself to her from shoulder to hip.

She didn't react, didn't even look at him.

He wasn't sure he had words to reach her, but he furrowed his brow and leaned so that his lips were a hair's breadth from the shell of her ear and whispered, "Emily".

She sucked in a breath like she was drowning and flashed tear-filled, angry eyes to look at him.

"Don't. Don't you _Emily_ me." Her tone brokered no room for misinterpretation, allowed for not an ounce of doubt as to what she was demanding of him.

Her eyes begged with him when her mouth fell silent, and he hung his head.

"Ok. Alright."

He gave her a few more moments to breathe before he rose, pulling her up with him.

"C'mon, Prentiss. We have work to do."

He waited until she met his gaze, halfway convinced that she wouldn't, that this was it for her, for him, for them.

He wouldn't have blamed her, but she could no more turn away now than he could, and so she countered his stare with her own, her eyes no longer tear-filled but still laden with that same emptiness.

His heart broke for her, and he wanted to pull her into his arms and bury her face in his chest so that she wouldn't have to see it anymore, but he knew that was the worst possible thing that he could do for her now.

She blinked and he watched as she rebuilt herself into the strong, capable agent he had sent into that house mere hours earlier.

She nodded.

"Yes, sir."

She pulled out of his grasp and started up the walk to reenter this latest house of horrors, and he couldn't help but stand there, watching her for a few moments more. She disappeared beyond the threshold and his shoulders slumped before he, too, blinked and pulled his agent's façade back into place and followed her in.

* * *

He found her in the hallway, later. Alcohol clouded her breath but not her mind, and he briefly wondered if she hadn't sought out the solace of drunkenness or if she had and simply hadn't found it.

He knew first hand that sometimes whiskey dreams trapped you in your mind rather than released you from it.

He couldn't focus on that now, though. Couldn't afford to be distracted from the sight that was in front of him.

His agent.

His friend.

His lover.

Afraid to enter her own room.

He crossed to where she was standing and drew her into his embrace, equally relieved and concerned that she didn't flinch when he touched her.

"Sweetheart, as much as I admire your _very_ realistic impression of a statue, I think it's time to come inside."

His whispered words flowed around her, wrapping her in the comfort and safety that had been so lacking today.

She leaned back into him a little farther but didn't break her staring contest with the electronic lock.

"C'mon."

He took her small hand in his own and frowned at the coolness of her skin. Bringing her knuckles up to his face, he kissed each one tenderly before giving her hand a gentle squeeze and a soft tug. There was a split second of resistance before she allowed him to pull her into his room.

He crushed her to his chest and spoke soft words of comfort into her ear, willing her to believe them. He had all but given up breaking through the defenses that her mind had constructed to protect her from the stark realities that had been pushed in front of her so callously today when he took her shoulders in his hands and tipped his head down so that he could look her in the eye.

Unshed tears blurred his vision and choked his voice, and her name fell like a prayer from his lips.

"_Emily_."

And with the splash of her first heavy tear against the patterned carpet, he resumed his whispering, each word that he spoke loosing another drop of her grief, setting bare all of her hurts and fears the way the beam of a flashlight uncovered things thought hidden in the dark. He supposed that was a fitting analogy, because she was lost and he would be damned if he didn't find her tonight.

She stared straight ahead, seeming as though she was looking right through him, like she was hearing everything and nothing he said all at once.

As far as he was concerned it didn't matter if she could remember a single word that he had spoken, as long as that damn emptiness left her face.

And so, when he ran out of the strength to stand, he allowed them to collapse onto his still made bed.

When he ran out of words, he lied there beneath her and breathed, hoping that with each breath she would be able to read between the lines, that she would know what he was trying to say.

He hoped he wouldn't run out of breath.

In the morning, when the sun shone through the curtains he hadn't bothered to draw and the secrets of the night were revealed in the light of day, they would have to find a way to move on. They would have to push these demons aside so that there was room for more.

After all, there was still a job to be done.

Tonight, though. Tonight he would lie on another impersonal hotel bed with his whole world in his arms and he would breathe.


	7. Stand Before the Lord

Stand Before the Lord

How did it come to this?

How did they end up here, on this dirty deli floor on an unremarkable block in an unremarkable city thousands of miles from home.

They'd just been getting some sandwiches – Morgan's birthday was the day before but they'd all been too wrapped up in finishing the case to celebrate the way they would've had they been home, but they'd found their monster that morning and wanted to surprise Derek with a meatball sub for the flight back to Virginia.

They were his favorite, and it would do for celebration until they were home and the self-proclaimed Party Queen could join them for more grand festivities.

Just some sandwiches.

And somehow, _some way_, that had led to this moment, where they were facing down three masked gunmen and a handful of civilian hostages, and all he could think was that they were just getting some _damn sandwiches_.

But that couldn't matter now.

Not now, when the small one was trembling with his finger on the trigger of the gun pointed at him, clearly in over his head and on the verge of breaking.

Not now, when the tall one had the barrel of his semi-automatic pistol pressed against Emily's heart.

Not now, when the leader was patting them down, securing their weapons against his every effort not to allow these neighborhood drug runners to disarm them.

And if the four guns between the two of them hadn't clued in the three young men that there was something different about these two hostages, their badges certainly had.

But he just had to stall them, just had to wait them out until the team noticed that they'd been gone for too long, just had to stay alive until a passerby noticed the unnatural stillness in the shop and called the authorities.

Though, as the trembling of the kid in front of him started to intensify, he wondered if they'd make it that long.

And then the gun in front of him dropped off of its mark just a little, its handler distracted by the words of the leader behind him and to the left, and in that split second he made a decision, the best one he could've made at the time.

He leapt into action, hoping against all odds that he would reach the weapon before it had a chance to go off.

The weapon didn't go off.

But the .45 caliber Colt revolver belonging to the Italian-American shop owner who was up to his neck in debt and hoping to pay it off with the insurance money that was sure to follow a robbery, well, that weapon did.

He fell to the floor, blood already spilling out and around him, creating a pool of red on the scuffed linoleum, joined a second later by his agent, his Emily, felled by a bullet projected from a gun fired as a startled reflex at the sudden loud BANG that had accompanied his own undoing.

Her blood mixed with his, covering all of the faults that had once been found on the faded black and white tiles, and he welcomed the warmth that seeped into his body from the stain of his sin, even as his own life drained out.

He locked eyes with her and wanted to frown at the look on her face.

Wanted to, but couldn't, his body unfeeling but for the heat of the lake of sanguine fluid that pooled beneath him, beneath them.

Outrage filled him as he was unable to look away from her, her face somehow both perfectly blank and so full of emotion that he couldn't bear to see.

They worked with the worst of humanity daily, chased real-life monsters, exorcised real life demons.

And they were gunned down in a fucking sandwich shop.

Her blinks slowed, her breaths took on the familiar gurgling sound that he had heard too often to believe it to be anything but death's final call, and the liquid draining out of her changed from crimson, to brick, to black, and he tried to reach for her, he really did, but his arm was so heavy and the numbness was spreading and his hand fell into the drying red puddle mere inches from her own.

And he whispered across that great lake words of love, the last ones that he would ever speak, before at last he fell silent and still, the both of them dead on the dirty and faded black and white linoleum tiles of an unremarkable deli on an unremarkable block in an unremarkable city.

They hadn't even gotten their sandwiches.


End file.
